


Once and again, it all begins

by coruscantguard (nadiavandyne), nadiavandyne



Series: The "Fox, Barriss, and Dogma kill the Chancellor" AU [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Explosions, Fix-It, Gen, Hardcase (Star Wars) Lives, Near Death Experiences, Umbara is a Spooky Place, Whumptober 2020, running out of time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26807353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadiavandyne/pseuds/coruscantguard, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadiavandyne/pseuds/nadiavandyne
Summary: When the Force calls out to Barriss, intent and urgency and the weight of the war all coming to a needle-sharp point, culminating in the largest rush of power she's ever felt, she does not hesitate.(In another galaxy, she does. In another world, she falters, thinks of her personal doubts regarding the Force and this war for just a second too long, and just like that the power is gone, a pathway opened and closed before she could even blink.But this is not that galaxy, and here, she thinks not of herself, and so shemoves.)
Series: The "Fox, Barriss, and Dogma kill the Chancellor" AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955119
Comments: 9
Kudos: 83
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Once and again, it all begins

The Force is with her. It always is, always will be, a constant companion in her life and one that will remain after death. The Force is everywhere, in everything and everyone.

And she is a Jedi. When the Force reaches out, it is her who heeds it's call, just as her Master before her does, a faith that's been passed down generations. Barriss is a Jedi, and so she follows the Force.

So when the Force calls out to her, intent and urgency and the weight of the war all coming to a needle-sharp point, culminating in the largest rush of power she's ever felt, she does not hesitate.

(In another galaxy, she does. In another world, she falters, thinks of her personal doubts regarding the Force and this war for just a second too long, and just like that the power is gone, a pathway opened and closed before she could even blink.

But this is not that galaxy, and here, she thinks not of herself, and so she _moves_.)

There's no time to waste, and she cannot give them a warning, cannot pull out her comm and tell them whats going on. The most she can do is throw out a wave of that feeling in the Force, unrestrained and uncontrolled in a way that she hasn't been since she was an initiate. Then, Barriss breaks from formation in an instant, angling her fighter downwards, and surrenders herself to the Force's call.

Her hands are not her own, not fully, and there are voices in her ear, in her comm, but they are unimportant. She jerks her fighter to the side, and increases the speed as much as she dares, focuses, focuses, _focuses_.

Her path is clear in the Force, an incorporeal thread she's bound to, and she sinks further down into it, expels her worries, trusts. She can _see_ the connections in a way she never has before, and the shadowy forests of Umbara are _glowing_ with life, with the Force. She's submerged in it, much deeper than she's ever gone in meditation, and the world buzzes at her fingertips, the lifelines and intersections of the universe in her palm.

She tears through the trees, goes up towards the stars, and there's a battle in front of her, and after that, a ship-- Umbaran. Barriss can’t actually see it, not yet, but she knows it’s there, knows it, _knows it_.

Flying through the battle is a blur of instincts and lights, and this, _this_ is what her Master meant when she told her to plan less, to listen more. _This_ is right, _this_ is what she’s meant to be doing, and it’s-- it’s been so long since she thought that. So long since she’d last had a moment free of doubt.

Before her, a ship looms, larger than the others. It is her destination, she knows, but-- something is tugging at her. Tugging at her, warning-- she cannot stay long. 

Her thread intersects with an hatch into the ship, then jerks to the side, an impossibly tight turn. Suddenly, there’s a part of her that’s preparing for some kind of destruction that if all goes correctly will probably be inevitable. She’s calculating landing angles, and how best not to crush her comm when she inevitably goes down, and she’s flying, and--

She’s more than herself. The Force is there with her, guiding her, and she’s not alone as she enables her ship’s cloaking, goes straight on into the ship, completely unnoticed. The Force urges her forward, and so she goes.

Someone else has been here. Someones, perhaps. The droids aren’t manning their stations--

A door’s been completely blown up--

_There_.

Three starfighters, exchanging fire with a group of droids, and she slows to help, but--

No. 

_Two_ starfighters, exchanging fire with a group of droids-- the third isn’t shooting, it’s missing it’s shield, it’s empty-- she shoots forward again, and neither the droids nor the starfighter pilots see her.

Which--

_Right_. Her ship's cloaking is on, of course they don't see her. She's not here for them anyway, they're not the ones the Force is pulling her towards--

She looks down, and--

The Force confirms it for her, an otherworldly wash of clarity. There, on the other side of the ray shield, by a wing-mounted missile pod. That's whom she's been guided to, whom she must save.

Instinctively, she shoots forward again-- ray shields don’t block physical objects, so she’ll be able to fly in fine, and her ship takes the brunt of the electrical shock as they go in. It’s a clone trooper, she realizes, and he hasn’t noticed her yet, focused on the missile that _he’s aiming at the other missiles_ \--

_Danger_ , the Force suddenly whispers, spikes in alarm, _dangerdangerdanger_ \--

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The trooper throws the pod towards the stacked missiles, and Barriss _moves_ \--

Her cockpit opens with a punch of a button, she locks her feet in, her arms reach out--

He turns, and there’s a look of surprise that quickly turns to panic, a yell--

And--

(During the second battle of Geonosis, Ahsoka and her had very nearly blown themselves up. Master Luminara had started training her in creating shields the very next day.

"Force barriers," her Master had told her, "they’re otherwise known as Force warshields. You learned a basic version of them in the creche, but since you are training to be a consular, I never had you focus on refining them."

They were focusing on refining them now though, apparently. First they worked on shields for protecting herself, and by the end of it Barriss' eyes were swimming, but her shields were instinctive and impenetrable. Then they focused on shielding other Force sensitives, on how best to make the power of others supplement her own, and Buzz got a kick out of that one, as Master Luminara had recruited him to throw things at them to test Barriss' shields. From there, they moved onto shielding non-Force sensitives, then shielding groups, then conserving power to make her shields last longer, and by the end of it she was so sick of making shields that even the thought of doing it made her want to vomit.

She hadn’t been very appreciative of that at the time.

She is now, though.)

\-- she throws her shields up, desperately wrapping them around herself and the trooper.

The explosion, when it comes, shakes her to the bone.

They're thrown to the side with the force of it and if her shields hadn't already been up, she knows they would have been quite literally ripped apart. The blinks, and when she opens her eyes again, the world has slowed down. The explosion appears to almost be happening in slow motion.

Barriss makes herself breathe in, breathe out, and she tightens her grip on the trooper, pulling him fully into the ship and closing the cockpit again, pouring all of her energy into keeping the shields around their ship active, into keeping the force of the explosion from tearing them apart, and-- _kriff_ , _kriff_.

He's unconscious. He doesn't have a helmet on. 

She thinks back to when she first saw him, and--

He didn't have a helmet on then, either.

What kind of _di'kut_ \--

Barriss shoves the thought away, and puts everything she's got into keeping out the flames. The shields will be impenetrable, unmovable, holding steady as they drift. Somehow she manages to The Force flows around her, sustains her, gives her the strength she needs to keep the barrier up as they tumble. She focuses on doing so, and her world narrows to the shield, the trooper, and the way the Force thrums through her veins. She puts everything she's got, and just a bit more into it, and--

She does it. She holds the shield, keeps the rubble and the lack of air from killing them as the force of the explosion tries and fails to tear them apart. She holds the shield, and she _must_ hold the shield, because... 

_Because_ \--

First and foremost, Barriss Offee is a Jedi. She is a Jedi, so she saves lives.

And because of that, she knows she must save this one.

Somehow, _somehow_ , she hits the emergency button on her comm, sends out their location as they spin away from the site of the explosion, and the adrenaline leaves her as suddenly as it came. She barely manages to keep her shields up until they’re far enough away that letting go won’t kill them, but the impact when she lets go still knocks her breathe out of her, and she hears her head crack against the seat. Ouch. _Kriff_. 

Barriss finds herself heaving as she tries to get air back into her lungs, tries to muster up the energy to check on the trooper that’s collapsed on her, tries to focus on something beyond the blur of the stars around her ship.

And she tries to stay awake, she really does, but she'd used the last bit of strength she had to keep them from dying immediately, and... and...

The world goes spins, and she barely manages to hit the button to decloak their ship before finally slipping into unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Happy Whumptober Day 4!
> 
> \- The amount of planning I have done for this AU is... extensive (to say the least), but the first part of it is finally here!!!! And to set the tone of the entire series, I figured I'd start it with Barriss sending Luminara and Gree into cardiac arrest! Nothing like having your apprentice disappear mid-battle to really do a great job at stopping your heart, huh? 
> 
> \- Ahhhhh, I hope you enjoyed!!!! :D
> 
> \- Come talk to me on Tumblr [@coruscantguard!](https://coruscantguard.tumblr.com/)


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